It’s Feb 17th, and as most of you know IT’s MY BIRTHDAY!! Woo. Ok so I tried to play down how much I really love birthdays here in Peru because a Peruvian birthday party involves a lot of drinking, dancing, eating, and drinking…and usually last until 6am. So to try and avoid
1. Drinking—I don’t drink in my site, everyone here thinks I hate the taste of beer…well it’s not all a lie. I hate the taste of Peruvian beer, so that makes the white lie ok right?
2. Dancing—I don’t dance here either…well ok I really don’t dance much in the states either, so that’s not changing much. Besides Cumbia and Whiano (the popular music here) aren’t very interesting to dance too. Think about your 5th grade graduation party, where everyone danced by moving side to side and throwing in the occasional twirl or hand jive…well that’s Peruvian Cumbia dancing…yeah fun.
3. Staying awake until 6am—I’m almost always ready to fall asleep by 10pm. It’s a combination of I’m now an “old fogie” (ok so 23’s not that old…but still) and the possible parasite that I’ve got making me really tired. (the parasite may or may not be a joke…we’ll find out in a month when I get back to civilization to see a doctor that speaks English)
But to give you all a rundown of my Peruvian Birthday:
At 5:30am I woke up to the sound of our donkey hee-hawing his way into the Guinness Book of World Records for the loudest donkey. And at 5:31am my host dad fled the house running in his PJs (not only was the donkey yelling, he was making a break for it—he’s notorious for running away). So its way before dark, the sun usually rises around 6:20, and I’m in no mood to leave my bed, I have a rule where no matter how early I wake up, I stay in bed until I see a lil sun (usually 6:20)—unless of course I have to use the bathroom (I drink a ton of water here), then I’ll get up before.
But at 6:00 my host niece who’s still here (they planned to only visit for 4 days, that was 3 weeks ago…) began singing “happy birthday” in English…well ok it was “hoppi berduy a wuu” because her English isn’t that great and she’s only 5, so I’m going to go ahead and just give her credit for trying. She entered the room quite literally with a bang—my door tends to stick, so in the process of opening it she slammed to the floor, still singing might I add. What a trooper. But after a few minutes of struggling with my mosquito net she finally managed to crawl into my bed with me to “descansar por un ratato” (that’s to rest for a while.) she apparently woke up at 5 asking her mom if it was time to sing me happy birthday.
7:00 we finally decide to leave my bed (and I notice that she had her shoes on and I now need to do laundry because my sheets are COVERED in mud…) and help cook for the people who eat at my house. Because today we didn’t have the normal 14 guys working at the mine. Oh no. They had diminished to 6 yesterday, and I was super excited to only have 6 of them eating at the house—less work, less smell. But at 7:15 the boss man of the mine came saying that he found 16 new guys to work until the end of the month, and they’d all be here at 8:30 to eat. Then at 7:45 the head of the electric company that’s been trying to get us constant electricity came to say that they wanted 18 lunches…so let’s do some math people. 14-8=6, 6+16=22, 22+18=40 yeah count it, 40 people eating at my house…oh wait. 4-+Dona Julia+Don Jose+Ingrid+Isabela+Don Alfonzo+Me=46. Did I forget to mention that my host mom is also a miracle worker?
8:55 (aka 8:30 in Peruvian Time) all the 22 guys from the mine show up to eat their breakfast. They leave within 15 minutes of being served…it’s literally like watching pigs eat, food is flying, chicken bones and thrown, rice is dropped, soup is spilled…its just a mess.
9:55 all the plates and tables are now clean and Dona Julia can start preparing lunch for the army. I head to the health center to say hi to my friends. They are all waiting and have a Birthday Hug waiting in addition to a Brittney Spears CD…they think that all Americans love her…so I acted surprised and happy…it’s going to make a great spatula to take paint off a wall one day, just not a good listen. But I pass the morning with the Health Center, half talking about the united states, half way talking work (it’s my birthday so they said I can’t talk much work)
12:00 I return to help prepare for the frenzy. I put all the cups out (we only have 20, thank goodness that they were already planning to eat in shifts) and plates and put napkins with the spoons (yeah we only eat with spoons) and then at 12:30 the “wave of smell” as my host sister put it, arrived. These dudes stink! But I’m not going to focus on that because this is about my birthday
By 3 we were all done with the cleaning and I had time to make my cake!!! I fixed a Peruvian Carrot Cake, it’s Peruvian because the ingredients are different, so the taste is a lil different.
At 5 my host mom and sister began cooking supper for the miners, and a special supper for me—Aji de Gallina!!!! Aka my favorite food here in Peru, it’s shredded chicken in an pepper, bread, cheese, and milk sauce served with potatoes and rice (yeah its got a ton of carbs in it, but I LOVE IT!)
8:00 my birthday party! All of the Health Center came over to my house to eat my favorite food, with my favorite cake from the states, what a great combination. We sat and talked and joked around for a few hours. Mainly talking about funning instances when they weren’t able to understand me during my time here and the confusion that the misunderstandings caused. But all and all a good time was had, and by 11 my host family and I were washing dishes so we could head to bed.
What a great birthday. I know that my mom and dad (and probably brother) missed me on my birthday, I for sure missed them, but my Peruvian family took really good care of me and went to extra lengths to make sure that I had good food to eat.
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